Résumé/Abstract : Studying coastal processes is essential for the sustainability of human habitat and vibrancy of coastal economy. Coastal morphological evolution is caused by a wide range of coupled cross-shore and alongshore sediment transport processes associated with short waves, infra-gravity waves, and wave-induced currents. One of the key challenges was that the major transport occurs within bottom boundary layers, and it is dictated by turbulence-sediment interactions and inter-granular interactions. Therefore, we focuses on numerical investigations of sediment transport in the bottom wave boundary layers in nearshore zones.

In the more energetic nearshore zones, the sea floor is often covered with sand with settling velocity exceeds 1 cm/s. Based on the open-source CFD toolbox OpenFOAM, a multi-dimensional Eulerian two-phase modeling framework is developed for sediment transport applications. With closures of particle stresses and fluid-particle interactions, the model is able to resolve full sediment transport profiles without conventional bedload/suspended load assumptions. The turbulence-averaged model is based on a modified k- closure for the carrier flow turbulence and it was used to study momentary bed failure under sheet flow conditions. Model results revealed that the momentary bed failure and the resulting large transport rate were associated with a large erosion depth, which was triggered by the combination of large bed shear stresses and large horizontal pressure gradients. In order to better resolve turbulence-sediment interactions, the modeling framework was also extended with a 3D turbulence-resolving capability, where most of the turbulence-sediment interactions are directly resolved. The model is validated against a steady sheet flow experiment for coarse light particles. It is found that the drag-induced turbulence damping effect was more significant than the well-known density stratification for the flow condition and grain properties considered. Meanwhile, the turbulence-resolving model is able to reproduce bed intermittency, which was driven by turbulent ejection and sweep motions, similar to the laboratory observation. Finally, simulations for fine sand transport in oscillatory sheet flow demonstrate that the turbulence-resolving model is able to capture the enhanced transport layer thickness for fine sand, which may be related to the burst events near flow reversal. Several future research directions, including further improvements of the present modeling framework and science issues that may be significantly benefited from the present turbulence-resolving sediment transport framework, are recommended.